Dr Robert Hornsby

Profile

I completed by MA and PhD at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), at the University of Birmingham. I first came to Leeds as a Teaching Fellow in Russian History, before moving to the University of Kent to take up a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. I then returned to Leeds on a  permanent basis in 2015. 

Research interests

My doctoral research, and my first book, focused upon dissenting behaviour and regime responses in the USSR under Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64). The last few years have been mostly taken up by research on the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) in the period between Stalin's death (1953) and the accession to power of Mikhail Gorbachev (1985).  

My first book, entitled Protest, Reform and Repssion in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Since then, I have published chapters in a number of edited volumes and in scholarly journals including Past and Present, the Journal of Contemporary History, Cold War History, and Europe-Asia Studies (forthcoming). 

Current postgraduate research students

Amanda Williams

Research groups and interests

Leeds Russian Centre

Qualifications

• PhD in History
• Ma Russian and East European Studies
• BA History

Professional memberships

• British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies

Student education

My teaching at Leeds reflects a wide interest in Modern European History, with a specialism in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, and the USSR in particular. Across all of my teaching, I seek to work incorporate both social and political history. 

Undergraduate teaching

At undergraduate level I teach modules on the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, and on Eastern Europe more widely. 

Postgraduate teaching

At MA level I am involved in teaching post-war European History.  

Postgraduate supervision

I am especially interested to hear from anyone wishing to undertake postgraduate research which focuses upon either the political and/or social history of the post-Stalin USSR and that of communist youth movements across the (former) Eastern Bloc more broadly. 

Research groups and institutes

• Health Histories
• Politics, Diplomacy, and International History
• Centre for Global Health Histories

Current postgraduate researchers

• Amanda M. Williams